Libya registers more than 2,000 dead and 10,000 missing after the floods caused by 'Daniel' and asks for help "as quickly as possible"

Cyclone Daniel that crossed northeastern Libya this Sunday has cost the lives of 2,356 people and could have already left up to 10,000 missing, of which 7,000 would be only in the city of Derna, the most affected according to provisional figures from the authorities that control the east of the country.

It was Tamer Ramadan, the representative of the Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC), who reported that the number of fatalities could grow in the coming hours since some 10,000 missing people have been registered.. The delegate wanted to emphasize that Cyclone Daniel has been as devastating in Libya as the great earthquake that hit Morocco, leaving more than 2,800 dead.

Likewise, the spokesperson for the Red Crescent, Tawfiq Al Shukri, has advanced that the number of missing people is around that figure but that it is not entirely accurate since it is still difficult to determine the records of emergency calls received in the last 24 hours due to to communications outages.

Humanitarian aid

The lack of resources and difficult access to these mountainous areas has forced rescue teams and citizens to extract hundreds of victims from the rubble with household utensils and bury them in mass graves in the Martouba cemetery, about twenty kilometers from distance.

That is why the Libyan authorities have demanded the delivery of humanitarian aid “as quickly as possible” by the international community in the face of the devastating floods recorded in the east of the country.

Musa al Koni, one of the vice presidents of the Libyan Presidential Council, based in the capital, Tripoli, has stressed that the authorities “want the aid to reach the maximum and as quickly as possible,” according to the Libyan state news agency. news, LANA. “We have asked for help from all the countries that we know we need and that have experience in rescue tasks,” he said, before revealing that Spain, Italy and Canada “have expressed their availability when it comes to supporting rescue tasks” in the east of the African country.

The teams sent by Turkey, which supports the government of Benghazi (a city in eastern Libya), were one of the first to arrive by air to offer underwater search and rescue personnel as well as logistical assistance.. The International Health Organization (WHO) has also sent a first shipment with forty tons of aid that should arrive throughout Tuesday to the affected area.

For its part, the medical evacuation service Libyan Air Ambulance has announced the opening of an air bridge between Tripoli and the eastern region to transport critically injured people, amid the chaos in some eastern cities due to serious flooding, which in The Derna case caused the destruction of two dams.

Although there are areas that already have professionals and resources for their recovery, there are some towns like Susa, just 80 kilometers away from Derna, that are submerged under water and help has not yet arrived while the corpses crowd the coasts, said the director of the local Ambulance and Emergency Service, Hamdi Al Hassi.

Reconstruction of material damage

The crisis committee formed by the Government of National Unity (GNU) – based in Tripoli and recognized by the international community – has explained in a conference that its work is divided into three axes: the rescue of citizens, assistance to displaced people to that they can return to their homes and the registration of material damage and its reconstruction.

“We will begin to limit the damage and repair it in the municipalities where weather conditions have stabilized starting this Tuesday,” said Local Government Minister Badr Al Din Al Toumi, who assured that mobile stations were installed to quickly restore telecommunications. and numerous sports and educational centers were made available to accommodate citizens who have lost their homes.

The GUN promised that the State will compensate all those affected by the floods and decreed three days of mourning for the victims in addition to ordering that flags throughout the country be lowered to half-mast.